Mike the Knight in the neo-liberal era : A multimodal approach to children’s multi-media entertainment

Goal-oriented learning seems to be a ubiquitous demand for almost all kind of play activities today. This demand, the article argues, is related to a specific neo-liberal discourse about the “superchild”. The article shows how this discourse is articulated multimodally in a number of media texts aimed at young children based around a trans-medial brand; Mike the Knight.